


I Miss Your Hugs

by Alfreds_Mustache



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Bruce doesn't know Disney movies, Depression, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Dick Grayson is Not Okay, Dick Grayson-centric, Dick considers Bruce his Dad, Father-Son Relationship, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Isolation, I’m sad and projecting, Pandemics, Things get real, i don’t explicitly say what it is but I’m sure you can guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:00:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28702557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alfreds_Mustache/pseuds/Alfreds_Mustache
Summary: Dick Grayson isn’t used to being alone for such a long period of time, and it's starting to get to him. At this point, he's feeling equal parts lonely and depressed, but really... He just wants a hug.Why does doing the right thing have to hurt so bad?(Or: Dick is feeling very alone during a scary time and can’t wait until it’s over so he can finally get a hug from his dad.)EDIT: added rating
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 8
Kudos: 69





	I Miss Your Hugs

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it’s not mine. All rights go to DC Comics.
> 
> TW: depression, anxiety, briefly mentioned panic attacks, isolation, alluded-to pandemic/illness and the detrimental effects thereof.
> 
> Please stay as safe as you can and take care of your mental health.

Dick will admit: living alone had its perks. No distractions, no arguments, no fuss.

It made getting to sleep easier, he only had to cook for one, and he didn’t have to clean up anybody else’s messes. On the good days (the easy days, the ones where getting out of bed didn’t feel like a chore), it felt like a blessing, a break, a much needed sigh of relief.

Now, though, with everything that was happening in the world... now it felt like a punishment. He was exiled, alone. Condemned to solitude.

No one to distract him from his own thoughts, no one to keep him company but his own demons. The quiet was stifling, the inaction suffocating. He was confined to a wasteland, to empty space and the absence of where people could be and once were.

But he was alone. He couldn’t cross the city border—nobody could. The entire state was shut down, governor’s orders.

No crossing state lines, either, so it’d be awhile before he got to see any of his friends. Roy lived in Star, California, and Wally in Central, Missouri. Both were a long way from New York any normal day, but the restrictions made them feel worlds apart.

Most of all, though, he missed his family. Even if he _had_ been living in the same city as them, he was still technically considered another “household”, a separate entity from those currently living at the manor—meaning they couldn’t mix.

His family were ordinarily all so close; usually just a thirty minute drive from his apartment to the manor, and fifteen minutes just from Bludhaven to Gotham.

The solitude was numbing, and he hated it. What he wouldn’t give to fight with someone, to insult someone else and have them bite back.

Make no mistake; he understood why this was happening and how it was helping, and supported following the new guidelines to a tee—it just so happened that doing so, following the rules, doing what he was supposed to, and being responsible… it was taking its toll on him. He knew it was taking its toll on a whole lot of others, too.

It was fine, he was making it work, he was learning to adapt just like everyone else was. He was still figuring some things out, but who wasn’t?

It was time to be a hero, just in a different way than he was used to. This was an invisible enemy that he couldn’t fight (not in the traditional sense, at least). He wasn’t an expert on the matter, so he had to fight it the civilian way (with a different kind of mask, hand-sanitizer and disinfectant wipes instead of escrima sticks).

So he would continue to do this—isolate, distance, abide—for himself and especially for the sake of others; for those who couldn’t afford to be incapacitated. By doing this, he was doing his part to help those who were weaker and more at risk than himself… for those people whose lives depended on it.

The entire situation was a double edged sword, he’d found; he was doing the right—the _responsible_ —thing, but he was slowly sinking in the process.

The crime rate had dropped significantly—mugging rates had dropped to a record low in Blud, which was impressive considering it was the most crime-infested city next to Gotham. Burglaries had also become less frequent, though to a lesser extent than the muggings.

On the other hand, domestic violence cases had gone up. Families and couples forced to spend time together in close quarters, week after week with unemployment on the rise and school taking place online.

Depression rates had skyrocketed, too. There were enough messed up things about and attributed to the city of Bludhaven, enough to be upset and stressed and scared and depressed about… And this was a pretty enormous, life-altering thing to pile onto the other everyday life problems. In essence, this situation was fuel to the fire, fanning the flames of the minds of the people in this dismal, godforsaken city.

People weren’t happy here on a normal day, so it made perfect sense, given the situation, that everyone would be even more on edge, more high-strung, more overall plain _miserable_.

Himself included.

He loved books, he loved studying cases, reading, cooking pasta, watching television, browsing memes, learning how to bake, drawing. It gave him something to do, to take his mind off of current events.

But.

They were all surface-level things to keep his mind away from what he couldn’t have, from what was lacking in his life at the moment.

Distractions and alone time grew wearying and monotonous day after day after day… No matter how good the plot of the story, how meditative the silence; it wasn’t equal to the presence of another human being.

Now more than ever, he was scared. Everything was new and different; his world (everyone’s world) had been turned on its head and didn’t show signs of righting itself anytime soon.

Every surface outside of his home was an invisible enemy, and every grocery item on his list that he picked out was a gamble. There was no telling which apple or instant rice or can of soup at the supermarket someone else had touched, where their hands had been, what germs and bodily fluids they were leaving behind for him to inadvertently touch. A can of soup touched by symptomatic hands looked no different than one touched by asymptomatic hands. He was confident he’d be okay if he contracted something, but what if he didn’t realize it until it was too late? Whose life was he potentially risking or messing up without even realizing it, just by going outside?

He was worried about his family, his friends, his city. He was worried about Pop Haly and Alfred, especially. He knew they were careful people by nature, but that didn’t remedy his worry for them; accidents happened, people were careless, someone could pass it on without realizing it until it was too late. He worried constantly about the very real possibility that he might receive a call telling him that somebody he loved was in a hospital he couldn’t access.

He was terrified and stressed out, isolated and alone and uncertain of so many things (bills, student debt, rent, groceries, Nightwing, car payments, dental work, medical expenses) that his stress level was through the roof on the daily.

But the thing that had been hitting him hardest—more than the stress, than the anxiety, than the cabin fever—was his depression. The days where he felt okay, when reading a book or watching tv could get him through the day and keep him (his mind) occupied… they were slowly dwindling. Those days were quickly being outnumbered by the days when he wouldn’t eat anything (where nothing sounded good and thought of food made him want to vomit), when getting out of bed was a monumental task. When everything felt too overwhelming and like too much, and simply taking care of himself was too hard a feat to even think about.

But…Most of all, more than anything in the world, what he really wanted was something so simple but so out of his reach that the thought of it was enough to make him cry most nights, and had formed a permanent ache in his heart. More than anything in the world…

He wanted a hug from his dad.

Bruce’s hugs were always awkward, a little bit stiff and neither of them really fit well against the other for it to be comfortable for more than a few minutes, but… They were steady and warm and reassuring in a way that said _I’m not going anywhere_ and _Everything’s going to be alright_.

Before the new restrictions were announced and put in place—when things were unsteady but not set in stone—they’d just begun having weekly dinners. He’d been making an effort to be more present in the family dynamic (they all were) and, for once, it’d been working. For once they were finally starting to feel like a _family_ , and it made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Every dinner he’d started spending at the manor (even when there was fighting and arguments and death glares all around) was refreshing, and gave his soul comfort.

So having to remove himself so quickly and completely from that—the newfound sense of family, of familial love and togetherness that they'd finally achieved after years—made everything hurt that much more. Now it felt like something was missing in his life.

Every day that turned into a week, every week that turned into a month—every Friday that came and went that he didn’t see his family—he sank deeper and deeper, retreating further and further into himself, and farther away from the progress he’d made with his family and social life and his own mental health and well-being.

He was alone, so alone that it was getting harder and harder to keep his demons at bay. So lonely that silence and the absence of another presence was drowning him, slowly. With nothing else to do and no one around to stop him, he had become his own worst enemy. His thoughts kept him awake at night, and sapped his energy for the next day. Every morning he awoke feeling more exhausted than when he’d gone to bed. Every day felt more hopeless than the last, and it was eating away at him from the inside out.

He needed help, but there was no one around to give it. He was alone and collapsing inward on himself with the sudden lack of support.

(He needed those sturdy arms wrapped around him, holding him close, telling him that everything was going to be okay.)

He stopped checking his emails. He stopped texting his friends, stopped calling and answering calls from his family. At this point, they were just cruel reminders of what he didn’t (couldn’t) have, pale imitations of the very people he couldn’t be with.

Seeing their faces on a screen and hearing their voices over the phone made their absence more pronounced, made him miss them even more.

Not contacting them at all and trying to forget and pretending that everything was _fine_ was easier than admitting that the opposite was true. That everything _wasn’t_ fine, that he was lonely without his family, _that he needed a hug from his dad_.

It was easier to avoid and ignore.

He knew that wasn’t true, that he was doing himself more harm than good, but no one was there to call him out on his bullshit, to hold him accountable, to give him a reason he couldn’t ignore to get out of bed in the morning.

His apartment was small, but felt infinitely bigger the longer he spent alone in it.

And though it was growing bigger in that regard, the rest of his world had shrunk considerably over the months, from the universe to the country to the state to the city, and being confined to the city really meant being confined to his apartment.

His family was only a thirty minute drive away—Alfred’s mashed potatoes and chocolate-chip cookies, Timmy’s sleep-deprived laughing fits, Jay’s lighthearted jibes, Dami’s mischievous smile and rapier wit, and of course Bruce’s awkward Dad Hugs—but they were an indefinite and immeasurable time apart.

It made him want to cry. And he did, a lot, more so than he’d done in a very long time, and over something he’d never felt before. He wasn’t familiar with this kind of hurting, the feeling of loss without permanently losing someone. It’s harder because it’s not final; it’s uncertain. There’s no one to grieve but the absence is still there and all-consuming and heart wrenching because you don’t know when it will end, when you can see them again, when you can hug and talk and be together without being afraid.

_I can do this,_ he kept telling himself. _Just one more day._

But days after days of telling himself that was growing tiresome, he was growing wearier and wearier as time went on, and on, and on.

He was so tired, so afraid, so _lonely_. He didn’t know what to do, so he stopped.

_I miss my dad._

  
  
  


*

_(Epilogue)_

“H...Hey, Dad.”

“Dick? What’s wrong?” The amount of heartfelt concern in Bruce’s voice was palpable, and Dick crumbled, because _of course_ his dad would know immediately that something was up, even over the phone. He could envision his face; brows furrowed, a slight frown tugging the corners of his mouth downward.

Immediately, he began to cry, a rainfall of tears and choked sobs that he’d been hiding and burying for months spilling out all at once.

“What’s the matter, Dickie?” His voice was soft, but grounding. He sniffled and wiped at his eyes as though he were actually in front of the man. This was the same tone he took on when Dick was younger, when he’d scraped his knee or was being picked on in class. If he closed his eyes, he could see Bruce crouched before him, a bandaid or tissue at the ready, arms open wide to embrace him, hold him close until his tears were all gone.

This thought, however, only made him cry harder.

“I-I m-miss you,” he sobbed, keeling over where he stood. His knees thumped painfully against the floor. “I miss y-you s-so, so _much_.”

The pain in his heart was unbearable, and he couldn’t breathe. He felt nine years old again, homesick at Wally’s house during a sleepover, scared and alone and so far away, and calling his dad to reassure himself that everything was going to be okay. Barry’s hugs had been a poor substitute at the time, but at least they’d been something.

Right now he wanted to curl up in someone’s arms and have his tears brushed gently away, hear someone mumble sweet nothings into his ear and card their fingers through his hair.

“I think about you night and day, chum,” Bruce’s voice wavered uncharacteristically. “I know it must be hard, and I’m so sorry I can’t be there with you. I…I miss you more than I can say in words, Dickie.”

And that’s all he’d wanted to hear, without realizing it until it’d been said; that he was being missed, too. That someone out there that he loved was in just as much pain without him as he was without them. That he wasn’t alone.

“I-I want this to be over so bad, s-so I can _see_ you again.”

“Me too.”

“It’s-its really hard.”

“I know, son. I know.”

“I...really miss your hugs.”

That earned him a startled silence, and for a moment Dick faltered, wondering if he’d said the wrong thing.

“You’re the first person to ever say that to me,” Bruce chuckled wetly and sniffed, and Dick had no doubt that he was trying desperately not to cry (and failing). “The second I’m able to, I’ll wrap my arms around you and never let you go; not even Alfred’s old-man-strength will stop me… But don’t tell him I said that.”

That made Dick laugh a little, but it was strained and it hurt. He needed to blow his nose and felt quite suddenly exhausted, but a spark of hope had lit at the bottom of his heart and was slowly starting to warm him from the inside out. He thought about what Bruce had just said. “...And we'll watch movies?”

“So many movies,” Bruce insisted. “I’ll even sit through Mushu.”

It took Dick a second, but when he realized Bruce’s mistake a laugh built in the bottom of his stomach and grew until he was practically on the floor clutching his sides. This laughter wasn’t forced, and it hurt but in a good way. He hadn’t had a good laugh (or had much to laugh about) in such a long time. It wracked his frame for a solid minute before he’d recovered enough breath to speak.

“Oh-oh my _god_ , you’re thinking of _Mulan_!”

“Right,” Bruce cleared his throat, probably embarrassed that he misnamed a Disney movie in front of his son. “That’s the one.”

Dick’s stomach ached from all the laughter, and little giggles kept bubbling up periodically, but he felt a little lighter and the pain within his heart receded just a little bit more. A soft, genuine smile made its way onto his face. It was small, and the hurt wasn’t gone, but it was better. “I love you, Dad.”

He could feel Bruce smile too, warm and gentle and kind. “I love you too, Dickie.”

  
  


*

**Author's Note:**

> I referenced/described some touchy subjects & situations in this short one-shot, so if you think I handled or portrayed the subject matter poorly, PLEASE let me know. <3


End file.
